Myron Rushetzky, the legendary city-desk supervisor at the New York Post who was known as the heart and soul of the paper, died on Friday after a battle with cancer at the age of 73.
Rushetzky presided over the New York Post city room for over 40 years, answering the city-desk phone that in pre-internet times was the newspaper’s main connection to breaking news. Like a triage specialist at a hospital, he knew exactly to whom he should send each call – news editors, beat reporters, or the rewrite desk. Just as important, he knew when to hang up on nudniks.
With his heavy Brooklyn accent, big mustache, and irascible, take-no-prisoners attitude, he set the tone for everything that took place on his watch.
He was also responsible for scheduling, training, and overseeing the copy kids, the invaluable support staff that in the pre-digital era, connected all the departments. The copy kids would “run copy” – picking up and rushing layouts, photos, and everything else to wherever they needed to go, and making sure everyone in the city room was adequately caffeinated at all times.
A mentor of journalists of the future
I started out in journalism as a New York Post copy kid, and I owe my career to Rushetzky, affectionately known as Myro, for scheduling me for a week of shifts one week in late August many years ago, which got me on the newspaper’s staff. Generations of future well-known journalists, including the New York Times White House correspondent Maggie Haberman, got their start running copy for Rushetzky.
Susan Mulcahy, another former copy kid, went on to edit the New York Post’s famous gossip column, Page Six, and wrote in an email following Rushetzky’s death, “He loved the Post… He was an important contact to make in the City Room because he knew everyone and everybody.” He was known for remembering colleagues’ birthdays and anniversaries and sending emails and cards.
Last year, Mulcahy wrote (with Frank DiGiacomo), Paper of Wreckage: An Oral History of the New York Post, 1976-2024, and dedicated the book to Rushetzky.
Rushetzky, whom few knew had a degree in civil engineering, retired in 2013 but never left the New York Post, creating and overseeing Post Nation, a huge email list that kept former and current Post employees up-to-date on everything important that was going on in each other’s lives.
This included book publications, illnesses, reunions, and deaths. When someone passed away, Rushetzky would begin his email, “People, we have lost our friend and colleague… ” He would close these sad notifications with “-30-,” the notation once used by journalists to indicate the end of an article submitted for editing and typesetting.
And he ended every Post Nation email with a quote from Mary McGrory: “I should confess, I have always felt a little sorry for people who didn’t work for newspapers.” Perhaps that line could serve as an epitaph for a life lived with a singular sense of purpose and satisfaction.